


If

by CinnamonOcean



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Gen, References to Depression, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:40:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29952858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinnamonOcean/pseuds/CinnamonOcean
Summary: Hi, it's me again. That silly person trying to do my best in a language that is not my mother tongue. Don't throw stones at me, please. Instead, report any errors and I will try my best to correct them.
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Kudos: 5





	If

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, it's me again. That silly person trying to do my best in a language that is not my mother tongue. Don't throw stones at me, please. Instead, report any errors and I will try my best to correct them.

If

  


Matt bump into an annoyingly charismatic lawyer on a train and he doesn't know why but he hates that captivating man.

Franklin Sharpe is not only an incorrigible flirt, he is one of the best lawyers in the City. Seriously. He's only two fingers away from becoming better than Matt, and Matt, kind of egocentrically can't stand the idea of that.

The man is smiling, bubbly, rich and successful. He smiles at everyone and treats everyone well and in a dignified manner. _There is no one that good in this world. Matt thinks. There just can't be anybody like that. Everyone has a stain on the soul._

But the man's heartbeat is steady and ... even pleasing to Matt's sensitive ears.

Sometimes it beats anxiously, confused and a little wistfully, even when he's letting out those annoying laughs. Yeah they're annoying and not captivating at all. Sometimes Matt has to restrain his lips - which seem to take on a life of their own - from curl up in the corner with some childish jest from that old-fashioned man.

Franklin's also kind and warm to Matt and doesn't deal with him as if he were made of glass, or with false naturalness. Matt, unlike him, is prickly and rude whenever they meet.

*

But then ... then it's gone. Everything's gone. Franklin, _Foggy_ is gone. 

His scent, his voice, his heartbeat is gone and Matt faces the emptiness of living without a man who was nothing but a question mark in his mind.

Until one day Matt gets one, just one opportunity to change everything. And this time he won't screw it up like he usually does.

  


* * *

  


Matt is terribly late when he runs down the stairs to catch the train. Fixing his tie that flew behind his neck while dodging people. There's no time to play the blind guy now; he knows how distressing it is to have to wait for slow, discouraged people to deviate from his cane.

He pushes aside a door that was already closing squeezing him in a somewhat unworthy way, but, thank God, no one noticed his embarrassment. He dodges a few more people and falls into the first unoccupied plastic chair. Finally, he could run his hands through his hair and straighten it up worthy of the respectable lawyer he was. Matt blew out a breath, he wasn't going to be late this time. Score one for the good guy Murdock! He didn't even look so tired and sore from the night before. It was so hot these days. His glasses had slipped to the tip of his oily nose and ... No.

“Oh you. Small world, isn't it?" A warm voice came in front of him.

Oh no.

 _No._ Matt whimpered internally. That guy. He tilted his head a little more to the left than the guy was. Intentionally, of course.

“Foggy Nelson. I'm right here, standing in front of you.” The man smiled. “Hey someone just got up from the seat next to you. I'm gonna--I'll sit next to you. Can I sit next to you?”

_No_

The man sat down with an expensive leather briefcase on his lap, shaking his legs nervously.

Franklin Sharpe. The most charmingly tiring defense attorney in all of Hell's Kitchen, or rather, all of New York. Despite that, he is brilliantly, polite and friendly. He just acts like he has no boundaries around people he thinks are hot. Oh no. Not that Matt was cataloging all of Mr Nelson, He just thinks it is appropriate to anticipate a person's true intentions. Only that.

Matt didn't know him well, but he knew the guy was popular and rich, filthy rich. And that hardly smelled good to Matt. Most of the bad guys Matt faced were also popular, charismatic and wealthy.

And as far as Matt knows, Franklin is the son of the cruelest lawyer he ever had the misfortune to know. And the evil is in the blood ...

He's only puzzled by Franklin always introducing himself as Nelson. And _Foggy_? Who the hell in this universe is proud to be called that?? Lost in his reverie, Matt didn't sense the man getting closer.

Matt jumped up in his seat when he felt Franklin running his fingers tips through his hair.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Matt demanded dodging.

“Oh, I'm sorry. I just thought that since you're blind you'd need a hand to ... ” He put his hand back on his lap slightly startled by Matt's reaction.

“Please don't touch me, let alone without telling me what you intend to do. This is ... unnecessary. ” Matt informed him sharply.

"I'm sorry ... again. I didn't mean to upset you. It's just that you're always so, so - Foggy gestured to Matt's perfectly aligned body. His heart beating faster and faster and faster- ... I thought I might be doing you a favor."

"I appreciate your concern." Matt said in a dry tone, asking the heavens for the man to stop talking.

Franklin, meanwhile, just watched people on the train coming and going. Eventually he smiled at an elderly woman in front of them. Matt rolled his eyes hidden behind the glasses.

"No problem, Matt." He said after a while. "Can I call you Matt?"

"Listen, Mr. Sharpe." Matt turned to him in a low, sullen voice tone. He heard it when Franklin cracked his knuckles restlessly, but it wasn't out of fear or impatience. No, Franklin was feeling jumpy just because he thought he’d offended Matt. Like a child, he just longed for any approval from Matt. Which was a little pathetic and flattering. Matt felt bad for Franklin. That was a slightly familiar feeling for Matt. He had defenses against the flirts, but Franklin being so truly compassionate? Matt didn't know how to react to that. Matt cleared his throat “...we shouldn't be talking that friendly."

"Yes but..." He tried to speak out, but Matt groaned and disarmed his cane, then got up. Franklin followed him. “Watch out the gap Ma--Murdock... Mr. Murdock... My client is totally, completely and entirely innocent, by the way."

Foggy followed Matt, who was tapping his cane quickly from side to side.

Matt gave a predatory smile and turned to him. "You'll need to work very hard to make the jury believe that madman."

Then, a huge man hurried past jostling Foggy on shoulder, causing him to trip over Matt. "Get outta the way, sucker." The man barked.

Somehow, it pissed Matt to the bone. He wanted to go after that man and force him to apologize to Sharpe, on his knees.

"I'm sorry, buddy. Did I hurt you?" Sharpe bent down to pick up his briefcase, which fortunately did not fall open and spread a few thousand papers on the floor.

“I am the one who should be asking you this. You just got hit by a rhino, "Matt exclaimed, focusing his radar sense where the man had gone.

As he turned his attention back to Sharpe, he felt a hot spot on his shoulder. That would hurt later and it would probably be an inconvenience for him to sleep at night. But nothing that a hot water bottle wouldn't do. Even a person like a Sharpe did not deserve to be attacked by idiots with no sense of space.

“Nah. I'm fine. I'm kind of used to people treating me like garbage. ” He shrugged and Matt swallowed a lump in his throat.

Matt automatically ( or it could be said naturally ) grabbed Sharpe's elbow and took a step followed by the man's. Sharpe's heart skipped a beat.

"So ..." Sharpe said a little too close to Matt's ear. “You went to Columbia, didn't you? I always wanted to ask you that.” He smiled nervously.

"Yes." Matt replied simply.

"Me too!" Sharpe's enthusiastic response seemed to have been cramped inside him for so many years, just waiting for this opportunity to come out.

"I don't remember seeing you there." Matt teased.

Sharpe stopped and looked at Matt.

"It was you making a joke?" He laughed out loud. Sharpe laughed easily. It wasn't forced, he sounded truly pleased. It was contagious. Matt chuckled.

  


And without any surprises, Sharpe won

  


His client, the _madman_ , was totally, completely and entirely innocent, after all. Matt hadn't realized this, however. The racing beats in his heart did not mean lying, but shame.

He hadn't set the building on fire on purpose; it had been an accident. Sharpe proved this in a sharp and concise way with documents, medical statements and witnesses who proved that the man, at the height of his depression, tried to kill himself by sticking his head in the gas oven. And just one spark was enough to set the small, poor apartment building on fire.

Sharpe was visceral in a way that he didn't even seemed to be the same person he had been a few hours earlier. And although he hated to lose, Matt felt a twinge of pride in his opponent's victory. But it was only because an innocent person would be free of an unjust condemnation. Just for that. 

  


He was already coming down the stairs to met Karen when he smelled that soft and expensive cologne. Sharpe passed him in quick steps and with his head bowed down, as if he were ashamed of having won. For defeating Matt.

Matt almost rolled his eyes at that. _Childish_ , he thought. Then he went down the stairs as fast as Sharpe and call him when they reached the sidewalk.

"Franklin Sharpe." Matt was extending his hand in what seemed to be a mild white flag signal. He felt the man's heart skip a beat and then speed up. Maybe because of that name he hated so much, or maybe he was just avoiding Matt.

"Mr. Murdock." He took Matt's hand reluctantly.

"I have to admit it was a difficult case that you just won.” Matt's grip was firm, his hand callused.

Sharpe's hand had some calluses as well. Matt couldn't help but be curious about how a man like Sharpe got calluses on his hands..

"Thank you. It helps when the client is innocent.”

  


And that's when Matt immediately froze holding the man's hand. A wave of nostalgia made him dizzy.

  


He had said that countless times throughout his legal career.... The first time was in a college debate. He was debating with a really brilliant young man. Matt blinked stunned.

Matt had never forgotten the long-haired boy who was bullied almost constantly, but in spite of that was always surrounded by girls and boys and with a big smile on his face.

The heartbeat was more tired. older, of course, but he was still the same, although it sounded sorrowful. The fresh natural scent beneath a ridiculously expensive cologne. And the faint smell of the old, rancid whiskey alcohol exhaling through the pores, a lot of whiskey, so different from that cheap beer smell from years ago. Frank - Foggy Nelson had never forgotten. He had never forgotten _him_. Matt was speechless.

"Matt!" Karen shouted from her car across the street.

"I--I need to go now." He released Sharpe's hand. By the confused way the man looked at him, biting lip and furrowing his brows, Matt must have been holding his hand a few more awkward seconds.

"You know, I'm also without my car this week." He smiled awkwardly, running a sweaty palm over the back of his neck. “That's why we met on the train and I fixed your hair. Sorry about that by the way. That was... unnecessary. It's just that... sometimes I... sometimes I think I'm kind of everybody's mom, I mean, dad. Look at me, I'm rambling.”

He glanced at Karen in the car, hoping she wasn't watching him humble himself. "Would you like to have lunch later?" He looked at his watch. "Dinner! Dinner would be better. Or a drink? What do you think?"

"Do you really want to go out with a guy like me?" Matt was still in shock.

"Why not?" He shrugged his shoulders.

"Matt!" Karen shouted again. 

It still took a few seconds in which Matt swayed awkwardly, trying to think all the reasons _not_ to go out with Sharpe.

“I just want to go out a bit...get distracted. I don't know many people in this city.”

Matt didn't need the senses to know that it was a lie. Sharpe was known to everyone in that city and loved by most of them.

“I--I'm sorry, Franklin, I have a lot of work to do." Matt sounded really disappointed. He rarely went out to have fun.

He just couldn't take a day off, otherwise the worst could happen.

“See you, Franklin.” Matt left, although his heart told him to stay.

“Goodbye Matt. Take care, buddy." Franklin, or rather, Foggy said quietly and went on his way all alone.

  


**Author's Note:**

> verb tenses are not my thing at all


End file.
